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Battery life and compatibility
- Battery won't last more than 3 days
- No battery indicator on the Touch
- Easy to charge
The TomTom Touch’s battery disappoints too. It is quoted as lasting up to 5 days between charges, but we only got it to last 2.5-3 days, which is poor given the feature set and lack of always-on screen. The display seems desperate to be off, if anything.
There’s no warning about the battery level either. You have to head to the Devices part of the MySports app to see the battery level. This is a missed opportunity when the Touch has both a screen and a vibrate function, perfect tools to give you a heads-up when, say, the battery hits 20% charge.
In some respects, the TomTom Touch seems almost unfinished, and we hope some of these holes will be plugged in future updates. There’s not even a vibrate wake-up alarm for example, even though there is basic sleep tracking, telling you how much kip you got last night.
Charging is at least simple. You just push the main unit out of the strap, then plug in the USB cable to your phone charger. There’s an on-screen indicator of how near to a full charge the Touch is.
The TomTom Touch is also compatible with a wide variety of devices, as both iOS and Android handsets are supported - though if you're running Android you should check that the MySports app works for you, as TomTom doesn't guarantee compatibility with all Android devices.
Verdict
The TomTom Touch has a neat feature you don’t get elsewhere. Body scanning gives you a rough idea of how much fat and muscle is under your skin, and working on bringing down your body fat is a great metric if you’re looking to get healthier.
Having a screen on the device is handy too, letting you use the Touch as a watch.
Unfortunately, there are more issues than positive points. While the TomTom Touch offers more metrics than some, it doesn’t make particularly compelling use of that data and the body scanner is often a pain to use.
This low-level annoyance is a constant presence too thanks to an occasionally unresponsive touchscreen/interface and a screen you need to press a button to wake.
Poor battery life compounds this. Lasting only three days between charges, it only has the longevity of a much smarter device.
Who's this for?
The TomTom Touch is really for those who like the idea of a wrist-mounted body scanner, since its other features are done better elsewhere.
As it's plain and shower-proof it's also a fitness tracker you can wear all day, though limited battery life means you'll still have to take it off more than you might like.
Should you buy it?
We like the idea of a fitness tracker that can tell your body fat level. It’s a decent way to check your fitness progress, particularly when excess fat around the middle can have a major effect on your health.
The TomTom Touch isn’t a particularly complete-feeling tracker, though. It suffers from too many usability niggles and obvious missing features.
Some of these will probably be fixed in updates, but the poor battery life and software that lags far behind the best seem unlikely to improve dramatically before the Touch is superseded, making the likes of the Fitbit Charge 2 or even TomTom's own Spark 3 a better bet for most buyers.
First reviewed: November 2016
